James Bond film studio worker jailed over toilet spycam

James Bond film studio worker jailed over toilet spycam

Image caption Peter Hartley was jailed for 16 months after planting a spy camera in the ladies’ toilets.

A sex offender who concealed a spy camera in the ladies’ toilets at Pinewood Studios has been jailed.

Maintenance worker Peter Hartley, 50, planted a miniature motion-triggered camera behind a grille in the toilets at the studios in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire.

The camera was spotted by a woman working on the new James Bond film in June, Aylesbury Crown Court heard.

Hartley, of Uxbridge, west London, was jailed for 16 months.

Image copyrightDanjaq LLC/United Artists/Columbia Pictures

Image caption The latest Bond film is being filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire

He will be on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Hartley, who was working as a maintenance man, was caught after the worker noticed light reflecting from the lens similar “to light reflecting off the face of a watch” and used a screwdriver to take off the grill.

Prosecutor Daniel Wright told the court the device was marketed as a “spy camera” and Hartley had used a piece of tape to cover its LED light to try to stop it being detected.

Hartley, who has a history of similar offences dating back to 2008, contacted his public protection officer at the Met Police later that morning to tell him he had reoffended.

He has previous convictions for placing cameras in a council building in Coventry in 2009 and for placing one in the changing rooms of a leisure centre in 2016.

Hartley has a total of three convictions for eight offences.

He later pleaded guilty to one count of voyeurism at Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court.

In a victim impact statement, the young woman who found the camera said she had needed mental health treatment and had suffered from acute anxiety.

Jailing Hartley, Judge Francis Sheridan said the victim’s life “has been devastated by a dirty-minded individual who preys on women.